I Can't Marry You
by piratewench78
Summary: "I keep making the same mistakes over and over again in my life, and it's a cycle. I've got to break it... I can't make you a casualty of my life." Missing scene as Rayna makes one of the most important decisions of her life, one that will change the careful path she created for herself. One shot.


_A/N: I've had some time to write recently and the muse has been hitting me hard, so I'm just riding the train until it stops. This is a season 3 missing scene about how Rayna went from the rehearsal dinner to calling off the wedding with Luke and I thought I'd explore how she might have come to that decision. Hope you enjoy._

If she was honest with herself, the background noise that had been going on since Luke asked her to marry him had seemed to move into sharper, more present, focus at the CMA's. She had known Luke was much more comfortable in the spotlight than she was, known that he had fed off the whole Ruke/Layna insanity much more than she had. He was gregarious and open and inclusive, all traits that had endeared him to her, at first, but now seemed more onerous. That it had all seemed to come together in this highly charged competitiveness had kind of taken her breath away. She'd tried to laugh it off at first, thinking it was just gentle teasing, but she had realized, over the course of the night, that it was anything but.

And it had given her pause.

* * *

She had never felt competitive with a significant other before. The truth of the matter was that she had been in the dominant position in her relationships with both Deacon and Teddy. She was the bigger star, made more money, and the balance of power was always tilted in her direction. But that had also created friction, more with Teddy than with Deacon. Teddy had openly chafed at being on the sidelines and being the lesser player in the drama that was their marriage. It had played itself out in his drive to become mayor, his infidelity, and the embezzlement scheme from earlier in their marriage.

With Deacon, it had been more subtle. While he'd always supported her and her dreams and been happy to play a supporting role in her career, in their personal lives it had wreaked havoc. She had come to realize that his battles with his demons and alcohol and drugs had been, at least in part, enabled by her. He had struggled under the weight of her expectations and ultimatums and last chances. He'd had no control in the most important part of his life.

But with Luke, they were supposed to be equals, on the stage and off of it. She had liked that, appreciated it, thrived on it. At least at first. One of the things she did love about Luke was that he was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. He was charming and fun-loving and gave her a life filled with happy instead of angst and pain. They were both strong personalities, to be sure, but he had brought out a playfulness in her that had long been missing. He was uncomplicated, at least in the ways she needed him to be. What had she told Deacon? He was a clean slate.

She walked over to the bench at the end of her bed, sitting down and picking up the _Rolling Stone_ magazine that was laying there. When she considered everything – the car commercial, the joint tour, the Christmas special, her girls acting out of character, this article and what she'd done for it – she had no idea who she was anymore.

* * *

Back at the very beginning it had felt like such a simple choice. It hadn't been, really, but she had known that the right thing to do was choose Luke. She had not chosen Deacon for all those years because it was painful and messy and she told herself she didn't want that. Yet, she finally found herself on Deacon's front porch and all that had done was land her in the hospital in a coma. She hadn't wavered much in her decision, after the accident, that it was better for her and Deacon to go their separate ways.

Except they had Maddie together.

That, of course, was what had set everything in motion, all those years ago as well as in the weeks that led up to that confrontation backstage at the CMA's and then in his truck. That had tipped their axis in a way that it had never been before. She felt off-center, she could see he felt desperate. But she couldn't help him, couldn't save him anymore. Didn't want to. It was the most scared she'd ever been in her life. In many ways, the accident had felt inevitable. As though there needed to be some sort of sea change in their lives that would force them to find another way, a different path.

It had taken a while for her to get past all that and start to forge a different kind of relationship with him. If it hadn't been for Maddie, she had felt sure she could have walked away and never seen him again. But, out of necessity, he was still in her orbit, and over time things had settled into something that, if not comfortable, was at least peaceful.

But then Deacon had walked into her house that night, after Luke had proposed, and made his own proposal. She hadn't really expected that. Although, when she considered it later, she realized she should have. She sighed. The two of them were just so inextricably connected, had been from the moment they'd laid eyes on each other. That pull between the two of them had always been there, through all the hell they'd gone through during the eleven years they were together. Through her marriage to Teddy. And now through this. There was no one she trusted more than Deacon, even when she was mad as hell at him.

* * *

The pre-nup had really started it all. She'd been looking for Luke's acceptance speeches – she rolled her eyes as she thought about it – and found the pre-nup he'd had drawn up. It was almost as though he wanted her to find it, since his speeches were all in his suit pocket after all. It bugged her though and it had set a bad tone for the night. Then, as the night progressed and she won every award she'd been nominated for, including a couple he was also nominated for, it got worse. He got drunk backstage, he commandeered the acceptance speech for the join CMA they won, and he'd had that meltdown when she'd gone to find him.

He tried to smooth it over later, but nothing, really, was quite the same after that.

Deacon had sent her a text. _Congrats, Ray. Much deserved._ Typical Deacon. He would never have allowed there to be competitiveness between them professionally. He'd been her biggest supporter, right from the start. She sighed. If only Luke could be that way.

She looked down at the magazine on her lap. She ran her tongue over her lips. It was a damn good picture. It had felt a lot less comfortable when she was going through the photo shoot, but she had to admit it had turned out well. The pictures inside the article were good too. But that article. She felt tears spring to her eyes. What she'd had to do, what she'd had to say, had killed her to the core.

Deacon had been right when he expressed his disappointment about what she'd done. No, it had really been more than disappointment. He'd been hurt, deeply hurt. She remembered how she'd felt, after it was over. She'd felt dirty and standing in a hot shower had done nothing to cleanse the stench from her soul after what she'd done. Of course, and she should have expected it, it had been even worse when she'd seen it in black and white. Deacon's words echoed in her brain. _I don't get it. I don't know how you live your life this way._

 _I'm not sure I know why either._

* * *

Everything that happened after the CMA's, from the Christmas special, to the Rolling Stone article, to the girls talking about boarding school and private planes, just made her feel disconnected from herself. Even trying to distance herself, yet again, from Deacon left her feeling out of sorts and sad.

She opened up the magazine to the article and read through it again. She had the same sick to her stomach feeling she'd had the first time she'd read it. It didn't get any better. Reading the things she'd shared about Deacon's battle with alcoholism and drugs, the frustration she'd felt. All that was true, of course, but she'd protected him, and them, from that. She had never wanted to air her dirty laundry in the press, had never wanted to talk about Deacon's demons and his struggle, or her own struggle to save him. Part of the reason she never wanted to discuss it was that she knew people would judge. Her mostly. They would wonder why she'd stay with a man like that, why she would keep sending him to rehab, why she would put herself through all that.

She sat back. What they wouldn't have understood – and what she also didn't want to share – was the good person she saw in him, when he wasn't drinking. They wouldn't have understood the connection the two of them had, the way the music had bound them together. She thought about how it had been for them. She'd felt like she was standing at a crossroads and she could either run away or go all in and she'd chosen the latter. Nothing had ever been the same after Deacon came into her life. He was like a force of nature and she had no option but to get swept up in it. No one would understand that, in spite of everything they had gone through, he'd been worth it. He had been worth the pain and the heartache, because what was on the other side was so sweet.

She stared again at the wedding dress hanging on the door. When she put that dress on the next day and walked down that aisle, there would be no looking back.

* * *

The rehearsal dinner had felt like just one more in a series of scenes in her life with Luke, where she felt like she was looking at everything from outside her body. There was the realization that it was actually a media event. It wasn't that she didn't know that, because she certainly knew People Magazine was essentially paying for it, by paying for the privilege of having the exclusive pictures and story. She rolled her eyes as she thought about the word 'privilege'. It made it seem like she and Luke were welcoming it, although, to be fair, Luke probably was. This was the man who, after all, had a bar-b-que sauce named for him.

She had told Sadie she didn't know most of the people there and that was true. It had been a long time since she'd run in music circles. When she and Deacon were together, their circle of friends and acquaintances were all musicians and other artists like themselves, starting out or just beginning to hit it big. By the time she'd sent him to rehab for the fourth time, after finding out she was pregnant, and then marrying Teddy, her social circle had completely changed. She'd had half a closet filled with respectable business attire, clothes she could wear to mix and mingle with Teddy's business associates and other young professionals. It had felt like growing up in Belle Meade all over again, a round peg in a square hole.

Sitting at the table at the rehearsal dinner, watching the photographers snapping pictures of the girls, that had sent a chill up and down her spine. She'd tried to protect them from media attention their whole lives and she was not comfortable with that. Then Maddie had introduced the song they were performing as one she'd 'written with my dad'. She'd glanced at Luke and she knew he'd caught that. She had watched Maddie sing that first verse, her daughter's eyes leveled her way. She felt like she couldn't breathe.

She still felt like she couldn't breathe.

* * *

She got up and walked down the hall, peeking into the girls' rooms. Whatever she did next, it would impact them. And yet they'd already been so impacted by what had gone on in her life. The divorce from Teddy, Maddie finding out that Deacon was her father, the accident, the rollercoaster their lives had been on since she'd started dating Luke. The one thing she'd had with Teddy, that she had counted on, was balance. There had been a good balance between her professional life and her personal life. But in her push to win CMA's, she'd lost sight of that. She knew Luke had encouraged it, but she had gone along. And for what?

She had never been just about awards. They were nice, and she did have a lot of them, but the feeling she had inside when she'd delivered a great show had been reward enough. Satisfying her fans with her music had been the goal. So she came home with six CMA's. Had it really been worth it? Worth the time she'd spent away from her girls? When she and Deacon had been writing all their hits, what had mattered was how it felt to them. If they created a song that had meaning for them, that took them out of their bodies every time they sang it, then that was the meaning of success. It didn't feel like that anymore.

She thought back to that awful song she'd written for the 'Dancing With The Stars' appearance. It had been, so she said, a tongue in cheek backhand at her relationship with Luke. But was it really? Wasn't it really some of what she was truly feeling? The reference to a ball and chain, to the heavy ring. She sighed. She really had never been on her own. There had always been a man in her life. She'd made decisions based on passion and need and a desire for calm and normalcy, and that always seemed to involve being part of a relationship.

She walked back to her room and sat down again, crossing her legs, and picking up the magazine yet again. She thought back to her girls and smiled sadly to herself. Of all the things in her life, over the last fifteen years, being a mom had been the most real to her. She was the truest version of herself when she was with Maddie and Daphne. The rest of who she was then, with Teddy, and now with Luke, felt like the version she wanted to be. Not like herself at all.

 _Who am I then? If that's not it, then what is?_ She felt like the most important thing she could do, right now, in the middle of the night, was to figure out what that was. _Who_ she was.

* * *

She was standing by the window in her bedroom, looking out at the blackness. This house had been Teddy's idea, something befitting her stature in the music industry. She had chafed against it at first. She'd fought hard to leave Belle Meade behind and yet here she was, right back in it. But Teddy had let her design the house and so she had made it what she wanted. The grand sweeping staircase in the giant foyer, that reminded her of her favorite movie, 'Gone With The Wind'. The massive kitchen, with all the latest appliances and a huge island where they could all sit together, the central point of the family. Even if she never was much of a cook, she enjoyed trying, and having family all close by. The music room. That was the heart of the house for her, with the comfortable seating that was perfect for writing. All the latest equipment. An in-house studio. The place where she envisioned sharing her love of music with her girls.

She felt a tear trace down her cheek. All of it was what she and Deacon had talked about, late at night, curled up together, in their own bed or a motel bed or in their tiny bus going from one town to another. The lake house had been for their own private getaways, but this house had included so much of what they'd always talked about for _their_ family.

What had Tandy said to her? _Just focus on the love. The way that he looks at you, the way that he talks to you. You love him. That's enough._ She knew Tandy meant Luke, but when she'd heard those words, she thought Deacon.

Teddy had wanted her love, her respect. He'd wanted a child with her, one who would never not be his. He had wanted to protect her and he'd wanted to be the hero, taking on Maddie as his daughter. Luke wanted her to be that shiny jewel by his side, wanted them to be a musical power couple. Of course, he didn't want her to outshine him, but he wanted them together to have the brilliance of that seven carat diamond ring he'd given her.

Deacon had really wanted nothing from her. Nothing except the love and the music, the things that were just part of their DNA together. The way he always looked at her, the way they talked to each other, whether it was with words or with their bodies, it was enough. She loved him. She loved him still. That just wasn't ever going to change. But they had always just hurt each other, somehow, caused each other pain. She wasn't sure she wanted the pain, but the rest of it? She didn't think she could live without it.

She walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. All these years, she'd been someone she was not. She had denied the part of herself that felt creative and passionate, because none of that ever felt right when it wasn't with Deacon. No one else understood that about her better than Deacon. No one knew _her_ , the deepest part of her, more than Deacon did. When they had come together all those years ago, they'd been two damaged souls who had craved and needed that connection. He had brought out something in her that she had needed to express, all the while loving her in a way that made her feel whole. And she knew that she'd protected him and held on to him when his demons were at their worst, making him feel more secure and letting him feel loved, for maybe the first time in his life.

The fact that it was messy and passionate and full of fire was because it was who they were, together and separately. They fit, they just always had. She had felt an incredible freedom to be her real self with him. She had let go of everything with him, no inhibitions. It was what had been missing all those years before him and in between. It was what was missing now.

He never gave up on her. Not back in the early days when she was frustrated over the lack of success. Not when she struggled with her writing. He'd always been her biggest supporter, through all the years he was her bandleader, but not her partner. And even now. He was still in her corner. She knew, when the chips were down, she could always count on him. He never gave up, especially not on her.

She could feel the tears on her cheeks and she couldn't stop them. She lay down on the bed, on her side, her knees drawn up slightly, one hand under her cheek, her eyes wide open. She was making a mistake. The same one she'd made with Teddy. She was trying to deny her heart by making the decision that felt right and correct, the one that would make her life easier.

 _I can't do this. I can't be someone I'm not for the rest of my life. It's not fair to any of us. To me, to the girls, to Luke. To Deacon._ She sighed and then she screwed up her face and let the tears flow. After she thought she'd cried all she could, she finally fell into a restless sleep.

* * *

She woke up before anyone in the house was awake. She changed clothes, didn't even take a shower. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy. The tiredness showed on her face. She walked softly out to the hallway and down the stairs, hoping to get out before anyone was awake. She picked up her keys and her purse, sliding her phone into the phone pocket, and quietly walked out of the house.

More than once on the drive, she considered turning around and going back home, putting on that less than satisfactory dress and going through with this wedding. But it wasn't who she was. She didn't know who she was anymore, with Luke, or who she'd been these last fifteen years. It was time to find Rayna Jaymes again, take a moment for herself. She wasn't ready to jump back into something else, and she would tell Deacon that, but she also knew that the inevitable path was going to take her back to him someday.

She knew Luke would assume she'd made her decision because of Deacon. It would be true, although maybe not in the way Luke thought. She hadn't led an authentic life, at least so far as her relationship life was concerned, since Deacon. The person she truly was was the person she'd been with Deacon, not the person she'd become _because_ of Deacon. So in that sense, he would be right in that assumption.

As she turned into the drive that led to Luke's ranch, she felt sick to her stomach over what she was going to tell him. But she also felt at peace. It wouldn't be easy from here, but she was going to get back the real Rayna Jaymes.


End file.
